From Desert to Forest: 8 Unbuilt Houses Designed as Contemporary Retreats

"Residential architecture remains one of the most active fields for unbuilt architectural exploration, offering a lens through which architects rethink how domestic space can respond to landscape, climate, and contemporary patterns of living. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected proposals bring together a range of residential projects that engage with houses, villas, and retreats as sites of withdrawal, mediation, and everyday inhabitation."

"Rather than treating the home as a fixed or isolated object, these projects approach it as a spatial framework that negotiates exposure, privacy, and connection to place. Across varied geographies, from the deserts of California and Saudi Arabia to the hillsides of New Zealand, the urban fabric of Tehran and Nazareth, and the coastal landscapes of Greece and Portugal, the proposals explore diverse responses to contemporary residential design."

Selected unbuilt residential proposals examine houses, villas, and retreats as spatial frameworks that negotiate exposure, privacy, and connection to place. Projects respond to varied geographies—from deserts and hillsides to urban fabrics and coastal landscapes—using strategies such as inward-looking courtyards, monolithic desert retreats, adaptive reuse, and landscape-embedded dwellings. Design approaches prioritize protection and climatic moderation, continuity between interior and exterior, material restraint, and alternative domestic typologies. Many proposals are shaped by topography and local traditions. Collectively, the projects illustrate a deliberate reimagining of domestic space attuned to environment, climate, and contemporary living patterns.

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